These Annoying Things We Call 'Emotions'
by lizoftheinfinite
Summary: Shane needs a hug. Rated T for language.


Set after episode 210.

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><p>This is the part of town where teens huddle in the alleyways, exchanging joints; where gang members swagger down the street together with their pants hanging down to their knees; where pickpockets roam the corners and thugs threaten with glares and guns; where the woman dress in stilettos and miniskirts and mask their faces with makeup.<p>

This is where Shane goes when she wants to stop caring.

She stands under a street lamp, smoking a cigarette. The beam of light illuminates her body. The night air bites at her skin, cold seeping into her bones. She stomped out of the house in only a t-shirt and ripped-up jeans. The wave of uncharacteristically cold chill makes her shiver.

"Hey, handsome, want a – oh, sorry, I thought you were-"

Shane looks up to see an anorexic girl in a too-short dress stumbling towards her in wedges. The girl looks to be sixteen, tops. Needle tracks run up her arms.

"Female here." Shane shrugs and returns to her cigarette.

"Fuck," the girl snaps. She crosses her arms. "Do you fucking know how fucking hard it is to find a guy who isn't wasted or stoned or gay or something in this part of town?"

Shane shrugs. The girl hugs herself.

"Can I have, like, a fucking cigarette?"

Shane procures one. The girl pulls a lighter, and, with trembling fingers, produces a flame. She sticks it between her lips and sucks hard.

"Do you have any smack?"

"What? Uh, no."

"Damn it." The girl breathes out a puff of smoke.

Shane squirms under the girl's gaze.

"So, beautiful. Want to have a good time?"

* * *

><p>Shane doesn't like fucking underage chicks, but something in the girl's expression makes her follow her into the alleyway. Not for fucking, though. She has more class than that (if only barely).<p>

The girl shoves Shane against the wall and starts to grind their hips together. Shane grabs her hips, but instead of running her hands over the girl's skinny ass, she pushes her away.

"Look." Shane pulls a ten-dollar bill from her pocket. "I want you to go down to the McDonalds on that corner over there, and I want you to buy something to eat, and I don't want you to throw it up."

"What are you, some fucking charity worker? I want to fuck."

Shane just looks down at her.

The girl shrugs and accepts the bill. Then she saunters off in the opposite direction of the McDonald's.

Shane grabs her hand, drags her inside, and orders her a cheeseburger. The girl refuses to eat it. Then Shane threatens her with the cops, so the girl manages to down half of it.

"Why are you trying to act like the fucking goody-two-shoes?" the girl demands as Shane leads her out of the restaurant.

Shane shrugs. She's not. She's really not. It's just the way the evening turned out.

The girl tries to pin her against a wall and kiss her three times on the way to Lisa's, but Shane fends off her attempts, and by the time they get to Lisa's apartment, the girl has given up. Lisa accepts her sentence-long explanation, and so Shane deposits the girl in the guest bedroom. She turns to lock the door (they can't have the girl running off with Lisa's shit in the middle of the night, and the bedroom has a bathroom attached, anyways) but the girl pushes her against the door and stops her with a searing kiss.

"Come on," the girl says breathily. "You're giving me a place to crash for the night. It's the least I can do, even if you don't have any fucking smack."

"Stop-" Shane starts, but the girl has started to work her way down her collarbone.

"I said stop." Shane pushes her towards the bed and the girl falls back, bouncing slightly. "I really don't want sex right now."

"Why? Thought all dykes were sluts." The girl bounces up and down, swinging her stick-thin legs.

"Really none of your business." Shane turns to leave.

"Wait!" the girl calls. Shane turns back.

"Please don't go." Then the girl wears bambi eyes. Shane is nothing to the power of the bambi eyes.

She sighs and sits down next to her. "What do you want?"

"Talk to me. Please. Come on. I want to know more about my knight in shining armor." The girl bats her lacquered eyelashes. "Why are you playing the good guy?"

"I'm not."

"You are. You so are. You swoop in and saving me from deteriorating to giving five-dollar handjobs. That's a heroine if I ever saw one."

"I really. Have. To go."

The girl sighs and drops the sickly-sweet voice. "Look. You obviously have some shit going on. And you might as well talk to me. You're never going to see me again, so why the hell not?"

"I'm out."

"Come on." And the girl grabs her wrists and gazes at her as if she's trying to forge some magical connection between them. There isn't one. Shane feels nothing towards the girl. But she's a Latina, and, with her lips curving up and her long lashes, she looks like a younger, scrawny version of Carmen.

Shane sighs and pulls her knees to her chest. "There's this guy," she says. "And he's my friend. Was my friend, because he completely betrayed my trust. And he's been lying to me the whole time."

The girl, wisely enough, doesn't say anything, just pats her on the back.

"And there's . . . this girl." She shakes her head and stares at the floor. "I've spent my whole life sleeping around and fucking with everyone and just screwing things up. And I did it again. I screwed it up. But there was never anything there to start with."

The girl draws her close.

"And, it's like, like she said. I'm determined to push people away and I'm freaked out by relationships, and, and-" Her voice clogs.

The girl starts to rub her back. "S'kay to cry, you know," she murmurs.

Shane just stares at her.

The girl hugs her, hard. She smells like cheap perfume and booze and sweat. Shane keeps her muscles tense and her eyes open. But she doesn't pull away.


End file.
